Scenes
by Calcifersgrl
Summary: This is the first in a, hopefully, collection of vignettes (scenes) from various fairy tales that will work itself into a telling of a story. The first chapter is Alive: A Sleeping Beauty Vignette. Please R/R!


Alive: Sleeping Beauty Vignette  
By Calcifersgrl  
  
Author's Note: This is really short, and I don't intend to make it any longer. It's not really a vignette I think, perhaps it's just a scene  
  
***  
  
I have slept and dreamt for so long that I can no longer tell what is reality and what is only in my subconscious mind. I have seen gallant princes with plumes in their velvet hats coming for me. I have felt them attempt to scale the briars, and I, along with the keep, have shuddered at their many deaths. I have slept, and will continue to sleep until the stones pull loose from their mortar and crumble beneath me.  
  
I see my briars flailing their thorns helplessly. I see the man through the tunnel of dying briars. A tall, dark, handsome prince - and he is coming for me. His tunic and leggings have been ripped in many places, but still he proceeds, wielding the silver ax in callused hands. He chops the vines away, one by one, until no more are left. He leaves the dead behind him, and only comes forth through the wooden door at the bottom of the keep for one more dead - me. I want to shriek and cry shamelessly. The hundred years are up, and I will finally come back to be one of the living. If I could, I would wake up and hurtle myself to die with my briars. No, no, I will not go back. And yet I prefer not to sleep and dream. But, how can I go on with a life that was stolen from me and given back with the death of hundreds of innocent men?  
  
I hear the wooden door creak open. My heart is near shattering from fear. He is coming for me. The big boots clomp gently on the dusty floor. I hear him pause at my bedside, sweeping the hat from his head and staring at me. What does he see? Does he only see the beauty, or does he see a murderer?  
  
He bends over me, his lips poised above mine. He brushes them gently, and backs away. That is my signal to wake up, smile sleepily at him and ask, "Is that you, my prince?" I feel the bonds of the curse breaking the rigidness that binds my body. But I cannot bring myself to open my eyes and see the face of a man who might have died.   
  
My eyes are still closed. I pray that he will go away, having failed to rescue the Sleeping Beauty. When he is gone, I will go kill myself. But he remains, taking one of my hands in his.   
  
"Princess," he whispers hoarsely. "Please wake up." There is a desperation in his voice that I have never heard in others. "Please wake up." A salty tear drops on my eyelid. Startled, I open my eyes without a second thought and gasp.   
  
The dust falls from my eyelids, and although my sight is unfocused, I see a face, caked in dirt and blood. Beads of sweat rolled down his forehead, but he makes no effort to wipe them away. I see the fatigue that etches into his deeply tanned face. He is very handsome, I note.  
  
"Welcome back," he whispers, giving me a crooked smile that stuns my mind. I blink.   
  
I want to say something, anything. Instead, I whisper back with an unsure and unused voice, "You could have died." My voice sounds weak and feeble to my ears. I struggle to prop myself up.   
  
He immediately helps me up to a sitting position, supporting my back with large, callused hands. I fold my hands in my lap, dazed. When I speak again, my head and thoughts clear, I notice that he holds both my hands in his. I ponder whether to break away from his hold, but his grip is firm and sure, and the feel of another human's touch is pleasing . . . I will be safe with him.  
Again, I reiterate. "You could have died."  
  
He looked at me seriously, "I could have. But if I died, I would have died knowing that I had tried to free you from your sleeping prison."  
  
His words stun my heart. I have known this man for so little time, and yet already, he has stunned my mind and heart.   
  
I brush away these thoughts, as I comb the unattractive cobwebs from my flaxen hair. I get up abruptly to the window; he follows close behind. I look at my dead keepers, sadly. Once green and deadly, now that the magic has been sucked from them, only shriveled brown corpses remain.  
  
I turn and look up into his face, into beautiful brown eyes. "I wanted to jump."  
He places both hands on my shoulders and looks at me gravely. "Do you still want to?" He does not wait for my reply. I do not give one. He takes his hands off my shoulders and moves past me to look out the window. "A hundred years. That's a long time. A hundred years with hundreds of deaths . . . I understand. I came back from the Pirate's War, old but young, scarred but untouched. I understand the guilt, the knife-pangs in the heart. It's been six months since then. I came for you, to free you - two kindred souls sharing the same guilt - so I could tell you what a gift life is. How wonderful living is." Here he stumbles, eyeing my staring face, uncertain as to what to think. "I could show you - if you'll have me . . . Unless you still want to jump . . ." He trails off, clearly untrained as to the rules on courting princesses.  
  
I touch his face so that he turns to look at me. Without warning, I cup his face in my hands and kiss his lips. "Yes," I say softly. "I would like that. I could love you. -- Living. Such a strange word to roll off a strange tongue." I can taste the word in my mouth and its appealing tang fills my mouth.   
  
He draws me to him, fishes out my hand, and presses his lips to my knuckles. In his kiss, I can feel the surety of his promise. He already loves me, I think in wonder. And I him.   
  
For close to a hundred years, I wanted to die - so much guilt, so much helplessness, so much hopelessness . . . But he is the one; he will keep me alive and make life worth living.   
  
I had a choice: to live or to die.  
  
I choose to live.   
  
***  
  
2nd Author's Note:  
  
I wrote this in one sitting - so tell me what you think and how I could improve it. *Sorry - I don't usually write romance - especially sap.* Remember to R/R! 


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